In this blog entry I will post photos of our new unit, before it was renovated. It was interesting to revisit these photos, I had forgotten how bad things looked. The photos of the finished renovations are here if you missed them: Finished Renovations

First I have the balcony photos. Notice the damage on the balcony door from where someone has used a crowbar to break in through the door. This is why we now have a crimsafe security screen on the balcony window, and a crimsafe door on the inside of the unit. We couldn’t install the door on the outside of the unit because the balcony door is common property, and under strata rules we are not allowed to touch it. It was strata’s job to have it repaired though.

First though, a shot of the balcony. Click on the images to see the large size.

I was going to replace this tatty bit of wood in the photo below, but since we were getting a new security door and didn’t need that lock hole, why not get rid of it altogether? So that’s what I was going to do, then the painter painted it and it looked a lot better. We kept it, maybe it’ll keep rain and insects out. Strata would probably have a cow if we removed it. It’s a grey area, if it’s in the unit it’s ours. If it’s ours, we can remove it.

It’s inside the balcony door, I’d say it’s in the unit. Is it in the unit if the balcony door is open? It’s a part of the door frame, maybe the door frame is common property. The inside of the door frame is our property.

Here is the stupid thing. We just got a new front door. The front door is common property, so strata had to arrange for the installation and pay for it. When it is painted, strata pay for the paint and labour for the outside of the door, and we have to pay for the inside paint. I don’t know how the painter calculates this price on a piddly amount of paint and time. Maybe he’d just halve the bill. I don’t know who pays for the edges of the door to be painted. I bet there’s some by-law for crap like that.

It’s about time I showed the photo:

Balcony door:

The kitchen photos show the tiles that are still behind our new splash back. They also show the filthy and rusty hot plates on the stove. Yuck.

The loungeroom had a greeny/browny/khaki coloured wall, that didn’t really go well with the pale apricot coloured carpet. The only way they matched each other was that they were both filthy.

The bedroom looked a bit dirty, but otherwise it was fine. A coat of paint and new floor made it look like new.

Here’s the bathroom:

You might see in the image below that the old mirror was really tatty around the edges. Strange to say, but it had gone rusty. Dig the wooden shower curtain rail!

Here are some photos I took after the painting, for comparison. The carpet had been removed, with just the underlay left. The new paint really brightened the place up and gave a fresh feel.

In the photos below, you can see the balcony door has been repaired and looks like nothing happened:

We needed to remove the door handle from the balcony door so that we could have the crimsafe door on the inside of the door jam. The handle on the balcony door came out too far and would have prevented the crimsafe door from closing. The locksmith came up with this:

The photo below shows where there was a high spot on the door which was rubbing on the frame when the door was closed. The high spot has been planed away, and repainted.

The lock has a long bolt which goes deep into the solid door frame. It’s an excellent lock, but all anyone has to do is break the glass and turn the lock handle and open the door. I heard as recently as yesterday that burglars usually avoid breaking glass, the sound attracts attention. I’m not sure how true that is, but I hope it is for the sake of the many people I know of that have front and/or back doors that are mostly made of glass. If a burglar opens our balcony door this way, they next have to deal with the crimsafe door, which we’ve been told is impossible to break open. I don’t know how true that is either, it if it isn’t, we want our money back.

Here’s the painted bit of wood:

The photos below show our washing machine and dishwasher which were already installed in the unit:

And there you have it. I hope you visit or revisit the Finished Renovations post to see the difference between the before and after.